Monday, September 24, 2012

WOLF CREEK is probably the most unique western book series ever produced.

Here's how Charles Whipple describes it at his review over at the Western Fictioneers website:

"This is an adventure written by several Western Fictioneers authors, the best the genre’s got, dead or alive. This is a short novel. Know why? It only introduces Wolf Creek and its citizens. Yes, it reaches a satisfying conclusion. But you end up sitting on the edge of your chair reaching for the next volume. While a handful of authors wrote this book, the story fits together well. While there are differences in style, they fit together well. And while Bloody Trail is a fitting beginning to a new series, it also promises many more rousing stories to come."

James J. Griffin, while a native New Englander, has been a student of the frontier West from a very young age. He has travelled extensively throughout the western United States, and has visited many of the famous Western frontier towns, such as Tombstone, Pecos, Deadwood, Cheyenne, and numerous others.

Jim became particularly interested in the Texas Rangers from the television series Tales of the Texas Rangers. Jim's deep interest in the Texas Rangers led him to amass an extensive collection of Texas Ranger artifacts, which is now in the permanent collections of the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum in Waco.

Jim is a graduate of Southern Connecticut State University. When not traveling out West, he currently divides his time between Branford, Connecticut and Keene, New Hampshire.

EXCERPT:

"Yeah, but Sheriff, look at what you've got. A half-breed Cherokee,
who'd rather strum his guitar or play his harmonica than work; then
there's Gallagher, a four-eyed store clerk who probably can't even see
to aim a gun, let alone set a horse; and finally, Torrance, who no one
ever saw with so much as a pea-shooter until this mornin'. Hell, none of
'em will do us any good out there, 'specially the livery man."

Satterlee gazed at Bill, who had thrown on his shirt but had yet to
button it. He took in the bullet scar on Bill's chest, and the old
saber slash across his belly, both still coated with Jed's and Rojo's
blood. He also hadn't failed to notice the Model 1866 Winchester
Yellowboy repeater Bill slid into his saddle scabbard.

"Joe, I think Torrance might just surprise all of us. He's ridin'."

"Ridin' what? He don't even have a decent horse," Montgomery
objected. "That fancy calico pony of his will never keep up. Hell, it
ain' nothin' but a spoiled pie-biter, everybody knows that. Horse like
that is only fit for women or squaws."

Bill had said nothing, until now. He stalked up to Joe and sank his
left fist deep into Montgomery's belly. The young man doubled up,
wrapped his arms around his middle, and collapsed to the dirt. He lay on
his side, gasping for breath, eyes watering with pain.

"Montgomery, you can say whatever you'd like about me, but talk
about my horse like that again and I'll kill you where you stand," Bill
warned.

***

I have been accompanying my introductions to our authors' point of view characters with a description of a member of the supporting cast. This time around, it is a character who was also created by Jim Griffin, but who is proving popular with several other writers (although not necessarily with all the citizens of Wolf Creek!)EDITH PETTIGREWGeneral busybody(Supporting cast)Edith Pettigrew is the widow of Seth Pettigrew, one of the founders of Wolf Creek, and considers herself, and her group of sewing circle ladies, the ethical compass of the settlement. She is constantly badgering the marshal and sheriff about some perceived iniquity... but she is not the morally upright pillar of the community she pretends to be. As she gets progressively more deeply involved in the seedier elements down in Dogleg City, her secrets -which are many -will be harder and harder to keep. Check out the exciting first installment of Wolf Creek- at amazon and Barnes & Noble!

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

As I have expounded on at length in previous blog entries in this “Gunsmoke Journal” series, I have been a Gunsmoke fan pretty much all my life. I have also been a history fan most of my life- at least since I was 8 or 9. The fictionalized Dodge City of the television show was just one of many “universes” I loved to visit –there were also the worlds of superhero comics, Star Trek and later Star Wars, Middle Earth, and Robert E. Howard’s Hyborian Age of Conan. None of those places were historical, per se, but they each had their own, internally consistent, fake history (although as comics fans know, DC Comics had to do some alternate-reality maneuvering to make their chronology consistent by the 1960s.)

I never liked my stories to take place in a temporal vacuum, even when they were set “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” I wanted the characters’ lives to have a narrative arc, and the universe they lived in to have a historical narrative, even if that history was made up. I eventually lost most interest in the superhero worlds, and even Star Wars and Star Trek, when their timelines became too ponderous and later creative teams started messing with continuity, introducing a word that is loathsome to me, “retcon”… retroactive continuity. In other words, changing their own history.

So –much as I love Gunsmoke –just imagine how freaked out my obsessive-compulsive historian’s brain gets when trying to make sense of its timeline.

When it comes to continuity and historical context, Gunsmoke has some serious problems. I think that most of them stem from the fact that, when it debuted, no one dreamed it would be on for twenty years.

Let me begin by describing the real, historic Dodge. It was founded in 1872, when the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad line passed through western Kansas. Dodge was one of several “cowtowns” that sprang up- railheads where Texas cowboys could drive their cattle, which could then be shipped to slaughterhouses in Chicago, making the western cattle business a viable operation for the first time. Cattle drives as we know them started in the late 1860s; it took western railroads to make the operation work, and before that there had been none. By the mid-1870s Dodge was a wild boomtown; by 1877 and 1878, it was home to all manner of now-famous westerners. Bat Masterson, the Earp Brothers, and Bill Tilghman were lawmen there; gunfighters, gamblers, and other colorful characters included Doc Holliday, Mysterious Dave Mather, Ben Thompson, and Luke Short.

By 1890 a lot had changed, in Dodge City and the West in general. The great blizzards of the late ‘80s had ended the open range system; ranches were fenced off with barbed wire. More railroads had been built, even in Texas, so the era of the cattle drive was already long over –there was no need for them when every ranch was relatively close to a railhead. The Indians were all on reservations, and –as of the 1890 census, as Frederick Jackson Turner eloquently pointed out –there was no more Great American Frontier.

But in the Dodge City we can now re-visit on TVLand, not much changed in twenty years. There were cattle drives in Season One, and they were still going strong in Season Twenty. Weapons technology had not changed in any way whatsoever. An astute observer will note that, in the course of those two decades, the town itself seemed to slowly grow –street scenes were a lot busier in the episodes filmed in 1975 than those from 1955, and there were more buildings. But other than that, and the characters who had come and gone, and the slight change in the type of subject matter that could be explored by the 1970s, the world seemed to have stood still.

An argument can be made, I think, that Matt Dillon’s Dodge exists, not in the historical West, but in the West of myth –as a mythic place, of course there is little change over time. And in the American consciousness of the 20th, and even 21st, century, that Mythic West stands outside the realm of chronology. In reality it lasted one single generation, roughly twenty years, but in our minds it lasted forever, with no beginning or end. Thus we can visualize a Wild West where people had always used six-guns that fired cartridges, where the cattle industry had operated by pushing cows to Kansas for generations. Where we can meet characters that are grown adults in the 1870s and learn that their father was a notorious gunslinger- which would have meant he had been doing his gunslinging in the early 1840s, before the first version of the Colt had even been invented. Or my favorite, the 70-something judge who reminisces about coming West to Nebraska when he was fresh out of law school, which would have had him practicing law on the Nebraska prairie in the early 1820s.

Gunsmoke was set in the 1870s. Twenty years passed for the characters –the amount of time Matt has served as marshal is mentioned frequently –but they never leave that decade. In fact, early seasons are set in the late 1870s, while the final season is set in 1873 (only one year after the town was founded!)

Those first seasons often made reference to historical characters. A wanted poster for Billy the Kid is on Matt’s pegboard for much of Season One, which would make it 1878 at the earliest; Chief Joseph shows up, recently captured, which would also fit in that timeframe. Season One had an episode entitled “Reunion ’78,” in which two men who’d met during the Civil War fifteen years earlier cross paths again. On the other hand, Wild Bill Hickock passes through, and the death of Custer is mentioned as being recent, and both those fellows died in 1876.

My fragile mind has tried to make sense of it all for decades… to find a way to make it fit. The best way, of course, is to use the formula from Bonanza (which was much better planned)… in that show, each episode took place roughly one hundred years in the past. So the program started in 1959, and was initially set in 1859. There are occasional references in the early seasons to a war brewing back east, then references to the war actually going on (including the occasional Confederate spy passing through), and in the late ‘sixties there are traumatized or disgruntled veterans. Of course, that means that for almost the entire run of Bonanza the Cartwrights should have been using cap-and-ball revolvers, changing caps and adding powder instead of shucking spent shells.

If you apply that to Gunsmoke, the show would have initially been set in the 1850s and ended in the 1870s. In fact, that’s what the writers decided to do in the last season, when they consistently referred to the current date as 1873 (which would have made it a hundred and ONE years in the past- take that, Lorne Greene!) There is a 20th season episode called “The Fourth Victim” in which a bad guy from the past is killing off people who were all of the same jury “fifteen years ago, in 1859.” It had been a jury of six… the first three are killed (one of them, Doc points out to Matt, “has lived in Dodge even longer than us”), two others have long since moved away, leaving Doc Adams as the “fourth victim.” Matt sends Newly to the courthouse to look through the old records and find a case that all three dead men had served together on; Newly is puzzled by the names of the two who had moved away, as he had never heard of them. Matt had, though.

“Chester Goode –he moved away not too long after that trial. And the other one, Quint Asper, was our blacksmith –he left Dodge about ten years or so ago.”

The retcon is on!

So according to that episode, all those years that Chester was the marshal’s assistant were in the 1850s, before the Civil War. A war that would have been raging when Quint moved away.

Which is fine, except Dodge didn’t exist until 1872; the Civil War was repeatedly referenced in those early seasons; there were cattle drives going on, then, in the early 1850s, fifteen years before they should have been; and Festus was allegedly a Civil War veteran, as was Doc (he had been a medic in an Ohio regiment.)

Most people would say “Well, heck, it’s a TV show. Who cares.” And they’d be right. Except I suffer from Historic OCD, and I have to figure out a way to make it all work in my mind to continue watching the re-runs. And I think I have.

First, you have to accept the retcon. Second, you have to accept that Matt Dillon’s Dodge City is in an alternate reality, where time unfolded differently from our own.

Here’s how it works.

Season One takes place in late 1854, the year the Kansas-Nebraska Act becomes law and Kansas Territory is formed. Doctor Galen Adams had been a medic in the Mexican-American War, and all those blue-clad vets we see are from that conflict as well.

In this alternate reality, railroads were built in the west much earlier, prompting cattle drives sooner (in real life, part of the reason Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas pushed for the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and for popular sovereignty, was because he wanted a transcontinental railroad to come through the Midwest.)

Chester (who may have gotten his leg injury in the war in Mexico) moves away in 1862. Festus, who had just moved to town, had in fact only served in the Confederate Army for a short time, perhaps deserting to ride the outlaw trail with his kinfolks.

Season Twenty ends in early 1874. Why does it end? Matt hangs up his badge and goes to the mountains to become a trapper (as we learn in the movie Return to Dodge.) Why does he do this? Well, first of all, Miss Kitty sold the Long Branch and moved back to New Orleans in 1872, tired of waiting for Matt’s proposal after 19 years and of expecting him to be killed any day. Miss Hannah, you’ll recall, replaces Kitty as Long Branch owner in Season Twenty… but she only appears in six episodes. It seems that Matt doesn’t hang out in the Long Branch very much after Kitty leaves.

My guess: In 1874 Galen Adams, who would have been well into his 70s, dies. Out of the original quartet of Matt, Kitty, Doc, and Chester, only Matt remains- the town is a reminder of lost friends and lost love, and he’s tired, and he just wants to be alone. He heads to the mountains.

With Matt gone, the town goes wild- wilder than it had ever been. Within a couple of years, the town council brings in some other famous lawmen to try to tame –or re-tame –the cowtown. These are the Bat Masterson/Wyatt Earp/ Doc Holliday years. Once they all move on (by 1880) and the cattle business starts to wither, the town shrinks and becomes much quieter. This time they ask former town deputy and blacksmith Newly O’Brien to be their marshal (perhaps –and probably –Newly has continued to serve as Deputy U.S. Marshal for all this time.)

That’s the situation when Matt makes his “Return to Dodge” around 1886 (Newly is even dressing in 1880s-chic.)

The other Gunsmoke movies, which center on Matt’s new life with his daughter Beth (product of an amnesiac liaison in the episode “Matt’s Love Affair) and the ranch they run together, are set in the late 1880s and early 1890s (an appropriate time period to encounter “The Last Apache,” for instance.) I like to think the old marshal died peacefully on that ranch, surrounded by family, circa 1910.

I got to have a hand in creating a different Kansas cowtown recently- the fictional town of Wolf Creek, setting of the new Western Fictioneers series of the same name. The books are written by “Ford Fargo” –a house name that represents about 20 authors, many of them the biggest names in the business. Each volume features about half-a-dozen writers, collaborating closely, each using their own unique character(s). As series editor I got to design the setting… and I made sure that the town of Wolf Creek was extremely historically accurate, even though it’s not real!

Saturday, September 1, 2012

WOLF CREEK is probably the most unique western book series ever produced.

Here's how Charles Whipple describes it at his review over at the Western Fictioneers website:

"This is an adventure written by several Western Fictioneers authors, the best the genre’s got, dead or alive. This is a short novel. Know why? It only introduces Wolf Creek and its citizens. Yes, it reaches a satisfying conclusion. But you end up sitting on the edge of your chair reaching for the next volume. While a handful of authors wrote this book, the story fits together well. While there are differences in style, they fit together well. And while Bloody Trail is a fitting beginning to a new series, it also promises many more rousing stories to come."

The book is available now at AMAZON and B&N ... you can get more info on the series at the official Wolf Creek WEB SITE . You can find other reviews below:

On this blog I have been sharing some inside info on some of the series' characters. This time- one of the two in the series that are written by me.

CHARLEY BLACKFEATHER

Scout

(Troy D. Smith)

Charley Blackfeather's father was a runaway slave from Georgia taken in by the Seminoles in Florida (having a Seminole mother makes you a member of the tribe.) Charley grew up in Seminole territory in the Everglades. As a teen and young man he fought against the US in the Seminole Wars, in the band of Black Seminole leader John Horse, one of the last bands to surrender- the US removed them to Indian Territory in 1848. Like most anti-slavery Creeks and Seminoles, he fled to Kansas in 1862 and joined the Union Army (Creek and Seminole governments were pro-Confederate.) Charley's wife and children perished during the Flight of Opothleyahola, when pro-Union Indian refugees were attacked by Confederate forces.

Now he works part-time as a cavalry scout, and makes extra funds by trapping and hunting for hides. He has no permanent base, spending most of his time on the prairie or with the cavalry when there is trouble. He drifts into Wolf Creek fairly often, to barter with Casto Haston the tanner and have a drink or two at Asa’s place.

Appearance: 6’2”, 200 lbs, all muscle. Seminole / African American- wears a single long braid. Most likely to be dressed in canvas pants, high-topped beaded moccasins, black vest but no shirt except in winter (then he favors a white shirt and a sheepskin coat), and a blue cavalry slouch hat (with insignia) adorned with a single crow feather. Carries an Army Colt, a Bowie knife, a steel tomahawk he can throw with deadly accuracy, and a ’66 Winchester yellow boy. He also carries a bow (for those quiet jobs) that he keeps on his horse.

Speaks English like any average black man from the South. Speaks Muscogee (Creek) as a second native language, and fluent Spanish. Also fluent in Cherokee and Choctaw, and pretty good Chickasaw, Cheyenne, Arapaho and Kiowa –with some very basic Comanche and Apache. Does not read or write.

Charley is around fifty years old, but looks 10 or 12 years younger. If Wolf Creek were a TV series he'd be played by Dennis Haysbert, of 24 and The Unit.

CAPTAIN TOM DENT

(supporting character)

Captain Tom Dent, age 30, has fought Indians his whole adult life, and has learned a thing or two. He is clean-shaven, 5’11’’, short brown hair. Born: 1841, Johnstown PA, son of a coal miner. When Tom was 18 he and his older brother Clay headed west to be "59ers," during the Pike's Peak gold rush. Clay was killed in a skirmish with Cheyenne Indians. In 1861, Tom joined the Colorado militia and served under Colonel John Chivington. For heroism during the Battle of Glorietta Pass, NM (fighting Rebs, not Indians), he was promoted to lieutenant. In 1864, Chivington ordered his men to attack a peaceful village of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians, mostly women and children, in Sand Creek CO. Lt. Tom Dent was one of only two company commanders to refuse the order. The soldiers massacred the village, performing terrible atrocities... Dent and the other company commander who had refused to engage testified against Chivington at the resulting inquiry. Dent was despised by many Coloradans, the majority of whom approved Chivington's actions (in fact, the other company commander was murdered for testifying), but had the approval of the U.S. Army command- who offered Dent a commission as Captain in the regular cavalry and assigned him to frontier duty. He is now assigned to Fort Braxton, Kansas, a few miles from Wolf Creek.

About Me

Troy D. Smith was born in the Upper Cumberland region of Tennessee in 1968. He has waxed floors, moved furniture, been a lay preacher, and taught high school and college. He writes in a variety of genres, achieving his earliest successes with westerns -his first published short story appeared in 1995 in Louis L'Amour Western Magazine, and he won the Spur Award in 2001 for the novel Bound for the Promise-Land (being a finalist on two other occasions.) He received his PhD in history from the University of Illinois, and is currently teaching history at Tennessee Tech.